The next two days went by painfully slowly. Nick and Ashleigh hardly spoke at all, avoiding each other at all costs. It wasn’t a difficult thing to do considering the size of Nick’s house. He spent most of his time in the basement, playing video games or fiddling around with his guitar.

Ashleigh on the other hand spent a lot of time in her car, driving around aimlessly. She’d walked around Tampa, gone window shopping and done just about everything she could think of to take her mind off Nick.

Nothing had worked. She missed him, and wanted to work things out. Though, she and Nick were both quite stubborn. Anytime the two of them had argued before this it hadn’t been over anything important. They hadn’t had time to get into large fights on the few weekends they’d stolen together.

Swallowing her pride, Ashleigh finally decided it was time to talk with him. She made her way down to the basement, where she saw Nick sitting on the floor in front of the television set. Either he hadn’t noticed her or he was ignoring her because he didn’t even look up.

Ashleigh quietly walked over to him pressed her lips together. She really hadn’t meant to cause such a rift between them. “Nicky…” She said softly, kneeling down and hugging him from behind.

“Don’t.” Nick said sharply, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Why don’t you go talk to Joey or someone?”

“I don’t want to talk to her; I want to talk to you.” She replied. She hadn’t talked to Joey at all since their conversation on Nick’s birthday. What was the use? Joey would only worry about her and she wouldn’t be able to fix anything. “Nick, please.” She said, sitting down beside him. “I want to fix it.”

Nick shrugged. He wasn’t interested in apologizing to Ashleigh and telling her she was right. The very thought of doing that made him angry all over again. Why should he have to be the one to give in? “Really?” He said, his voice lacking in any sort of emotion. “And how do you plan to do that?”

“If you would just understand…”

Nick glared at her, finally taking his attention away from his game and focusing on Ashleigh. “Why should it have to be me that gives in?” He asked angrily.

Ashleigh put her head in her knees. She couldn’t believe that they were going to start arguing again. All she’d wanted was to talk to him calmly. “Because my way involves inaction. If it were the other way around, you’d be the one to get your way, if I were saying we should get married and you were saying no.”

Nick pouted, she did have a point. He couldn’t force her to marry him just so he could win their argument. It didn’t make any sense, and that certainly wasn’t the way he wanted things to go. “I guess. I just don’t see why you don’t want to.”

“I just think it’s too soon. Please understand that.”

Nick scoffed. How could it be too soon? They hadn’t had any problems in there relationship at all, so what did the amount of time matter. That was precisely what he told her.

“Everything isn’t always going to be perfect.” Ashleigh said calmly, not wanting to fight with him any longer. “How do we know how things are going to go between us when things aren’t so great? Lord knows we aren’t doing a very good job right now.”

Nick sighed. The only reason things weren’t going well was because she refused to let their relationship move ahead. “Only because you’re being so stubborn.”

She didn’t lose her cool. “I’m not being stubborn, Nick. I’m being realistic. I was already engaged once, can you imagine what would have happened if I had been married when I’d met up with you again? Things definitely would have been a lot worse.”

“But you don’t want anyone else.” Nick said, looking at her for affirmation of his statement.

“No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean we have to rush into things. I didn’t say it was completely off the table for the future. If things continue to work out between us I would love to marry you some day.”

“Some day.” Nick said, rolling his eyes. Still, he began to understand her point. Perhaps he had acted a little too rash. She was right, they hadn’t yet faced any major relationship problems. However, Nick didn’t have any doubt in his mind that they would be able to get through anything together. After all, they loved each other, wasn’t that all that mattered.

“I love you.” She said, kissing him.

Nick responded eagerly to her kisses. “I love you too.” Though he still wasn’t keen on the idea of waiting, he figured he may as well lay off for a while. If she didn’t want to yet, there was no point in pushing the issue any longer. Nick could only hope that she would change her mind.

—————————————————————————————–

“We totally did it on the floor of the basement.” Ashleigh giggled into the phone later that evening. After two days of not talking, the girls definitely had a lot to catch up on. Ashleigh moving so far away had been hard on them, they’d seen each other nearly every day since they were in the sixth grade. Now, they had to settle for talking on the phone instead of having girly sleep-overs (which they still did, despite the fact that they were now in their later twenties).

Joey laughed. She was glad she had finally phoned Ashleigh to see what was going on. “So, is the best part about fighting making up?”

“Definitely.” Ashleigh giggled. “So? How’s the snow?”

Joey groaned. She couldn’t deny the fact that she was jealous of Ashleigh, living in sunny Florida. “It sucks. Though a bunch of us went ice skaing a few nights ago.”

Ashleigh felt a pang of jealousy. She really did miss all of her friends terribly, especially since the events of the last few days. It worried her a little, that moving away would cause her to lose touch with everyone. “That must have been fun.”

“It was all right. Nothing compared to you though, hanging out with the Backstreet Boys.” Joey laughed. “You never did tell me how Nick’s party went, besides his crazy proposal.”

“It was okay. I didn’t talk much. I felt really shy, and couldn’t shake this nervous sick feeling.” She admitted.

“And here I thought you would have been over your obsessive Backstreet Boys days.” Joey teased her. “I’m sure they loved you.”

“I guess so. Though they probably all hate me now for not marrying Nick.” Ashleigh said, a tinge of worry in her voice. She really didn’t want that to happen, especially after she’d began to feel a little more comfortable around Howie and Leigh.

“Nah.” Joey said dismissively. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.” Ashleigh replied, but still wasn’t able to shake the feeling that things between her and Nick weren’t going to be able to go back to normal. At least not for a while.